In her first address to party MPs since the poor showing in the assembly polls, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi Wednesday expressed her deep disappointment with the results in Goa and Punjab, but sought to highlight the gains in Uttar Pradesh, where the party too fared badly despite her son Rahul Gandhi’s strong campaigning.
She also asked party members to shed factionalism, keeping in mind more assembly polls ahead.
In her address to the Congress parliamentary party, Gandhi said the results in Punjab and Goa “were very disappointing”.
On the Uttar Pradesh results, she said the party did not perform as well as it had hoped to but sought to draw on positives of the result.
“We increased our vote share considerably and were seen as a serious player for the first time in 22 years,” she said.
Rahul Gandhi, who is party general secretary, had campaigned extensively in Uttar Pradesh but the party could win only 28 out of 403 seats. The party had won 22 seats in 2007.
“Of course there is much work to be done there (UP), as in other states,” the Congress president said.
Sonia Gandhi’s remarks about positives in Uttar Pradesh are being seen as a signal that individuals were not likely to be held accountable in the near future for the party’s poll debacle in the state. Congress has been out of power in Uttar Pradesh for the past 22 years and Rahul Gandhi had pitched the party as a claimant to power in the assembly polls. Party leaders were expecting at least 70 seats in the country’s most populous state.
Gandhi said the party can take satisfaction in returning to power in Manipur for the third time and forming the government in Uttarakhand.
She urged party members to “shed all manner of factional behaviour, and fight as one disciplined team at all levels. That will be the single-most important factor to decide whether we win or lose,” Gandhi said.
“People look to us – but we need to show them our commitment and our unity if we are to convert this sentiment into electoral victories,” she added.
She asked partymen to draw lessons from the outcome and prepare for the forthcoming contests.
“As we approach a series of state elections in the coming months, we must draw upon the lessons of the previous polls. We must project our work as a central government and expose the hollow claims of opposition-ruled state governments. Misgovernance and corruption have been widespread in some of these states as revealed by CAG and Lokayukta reports. It is for us all, particularly for our party at the state level, to highlight these failures,” Gandhi said.
Assembly elections are due in Gujarat and Himachal Pradesh later this year and in Karnataka in the first half of next year. All three states are ruled by Bharatiya Janata Party. Assembly elections are also due next year in Delhi, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh ahead of Lok Sabha polls in the first half of 2014.
The Congress president said a bill to ensure transparency in public procurement is expected to be introduced in parliament over the next few days and would mark another milestone in the government’s determination to enhance probity.
She said the party had remained steadfast in its commitment to the “aam aadmi (common man) and weaker sections” though it had faced challenges that had tested its resolve.
Referring to opposition parties and veiled criticism about policy paralysis in government, she said it had become fashionable these days to criticise the government.
“We must not allow this deflect us. We must speak forcefully and with confidence on what we have achieved – and there is much we have to show despite difficult economic times,” she said.
Gandhi also asked partymen to project government’s accomplishments and expose the opposition’s “double-speak” and its “obstructive behaviour” in blocking parliamentary proceedings.
Referring to Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee as “Pranabji”, she said the budget had renewed the government’s priority for faster and inclusive growth and referred to many of its provisions.
Mukherjee’s name has been doing the rounds as a probable Congress candidate in the July presidential polls.